Facts and figures about genetically modified organismsApril 2008
Every year, an organisation funded by the genetic
engineering industry called the International Service
for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications
(ISAAA) publishes new figures and highlights the
increase in the acreage of land planted with
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) across the
world1.
These are the facts that the ISAAA does not put in
its press release:
• 92.5% of arable land around the world is GMO
free;
• Only four countries grow almost 90% of the total
GM crops;
• 176 out of the 192 countries grow no GMOs at
all;
• In over 10 years on the market, only four GM
crops are grown in significant quantity – soya,
maize, cotton and oil-seed rape (canola). These
four crops represent 99% of GMOs sold;
• Virtually 100% of world acreage planted with
commercial GM crops have one or both of just
two traits: herbicide-tolerance and insect-
resistance.
The four countries that grow 90% of GMOs
worldwide are the US (53%), Argentina (18%), Brazil
(11.5%) and Canada (6.1%).
Almost all GM crops currently released belong to
four companies: Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta and
Bayer. Monsanto sells more than 90% of all GM
seeds worldwide. In recent years it has stopped
selling or developing GM wheat, tomatoes, potatoes
and bananas. It has given up trying to sell GMOs
direct to the public, and now focuses on commodity
crops which go straight from farmer to industrial
processor.
A decade after GM maize was first marketed, six of
the world’s top 10 maize producing countries are
100% GM-free. Even in the US, GM maize
represents less than half of all maize grown.
Worldwide, just 7.5% of farmland is planted with
GMOs. The world map in the ISAAA report1
shows
countries where up to 50,000 hectares are planted
with GMOs, failing to indicate that most of these
countries plant only a few hundred hectares. Claims
that Europe is alone in not planting GM crops are
patently inaccurate.
In Europe, ISAAA stated a 77% increase in
cultivation of GMOs in 2007, still only 0.119 % of
agricultural land was planted with such crops. (This
is how a very small increase in acreage can be made
to look like enormous progress.) For comparison, in
2006 organic farmland represented 4% of EU
agricultural land, covering an area larger than 6.8
million hectares managed by over 170,000 farms.
With these poor results, is it any surprise that US
government representatives and agro-chemical
lobbyists are putting such pressure on Europe and
developing countries to accept GMOs?
The power of public relations over factThe power of public relations over factThe power of public relations over factThe power of public relations over fact
In its heavily promoted reports, the ISAAA assumes
that the entire population of any country where
GMOs are grown benefits from GM crops. It
calculates, for example, that 80 million people in
Germany - the total population - benefit from GMO
crops, even though the 23km2
of German soil
planted with GMOs could barely support 4,000
people, let alone 80 million.
Claims that GM crops increase yields are similarly
exaggerated. The GM crops currently
commercialised are either tolerant to herbicides or
insect resistant. Herbicide-tolerant crops do not
increase yields. Insect-resistant GM crops may
increase yields in years of high infestation by the
target pest, but this leads pests to develop
resistance in the medium and longer term. Studies in
Europe found that yield depend on the crop variety2
rather than on the genetic modification applied.
Studies have also found lower yields from GM
insect-resistant maize compared to conventional
non-GM maize.
Neither does planting GM crops reduce the use of
chemical pesticides on farmland, despite what agro-
biotechnological companies claim. In fact, from
1996 to 2004 parallel to increasing cultivation of GM
crops in the US there was an observed 55,000,000
kg increase in pesticide use, a 4.1% rise.3
The target pest insects will inevitably develop
resistance to the pesticides produced by GM crops.4
This will oblige farmers to apply both greater
quantities and additional varieties of insecticide in
the coming years. The main beneficiaries then
become the companies that make pesticides, which
are often the same companies that make GMOs.
Any perceived benefits of GM crops – such as
increased yields in occasional years and reduced
insecticide usage – are thus short-lived.
Meanwhile, various scientific studies have concluded
serious and valid concerns on the effects of these
crops on ‘non-target’ organisms such as butterflies
and predators of the target pests.
Recently, the International Assessment of
Agricultural Science and Technology for
Development5
brought together 400 scientists, UN
agencies, governments, non-governmental
organisations, industry and farmer associations
across the globe for a four-year scientific project.
This is the equivalent for agriculture as is the IPCC
report for climate change. The Synthesis Report,
endorsed by 60 governments, concludes that
genetically modified crops are not a solution for
poverty, hunger or climate change.
ReferencesReferencesReferencesReferences
1111 James, Clive. 2007. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech - GM
Crops: 2007. ISAAA Brief No. 37. Executive summary. ISAAA: Ithaca,
NY. http://www.isaaa.org/
2222 Ma, B.L., & Subedi, K.D. 2005. Development, yield, grain moisture
and nitrogen uptake of Bt corn hybrids and their conventional near-
isolines. Field Crops Research 93: 199–211.
3333 Benbrook, Charles M. 2004. Genetically Engineered Crops and
Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Nine Years. BioTech
InfoNet Technical Paper Number 7, October 2004: 39-40
4444 Tabashnik, B.E., Gassmann, A.J., Crowder, D.W. & Carrière, Y. 2008.
Insect resistance to Bt crops: evidence versus theory. Nature
Biotechnology 26: 199-202.
5555 International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for
Development (IAASTD) 2008. Synthesis Report Executive Summary.
http://www.agassessment.org/
Greenpeace European Unit. www.greenpeace.eu
